NO better lines were ever written for any WWII movie. Those lines are a truism for the world in which we live today. I wish that those lines were in print.

Crash Dive shows America's heart on its sleeve in 1943. Filmed in stunning Technicolor and featuring the great Tyrone Power, along with fine support work by Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan, James Gleason, and Ben Carter, Crash Dive is a feel-good action/romance yarn that will stand up well to second or third viewings. Like many such vehicles, the movie is vulnerable to critical comments regarding technical issues ( like the German "sub base", and the submarine interiors) and the somewhat tiresome love triangle plot element. It also would have been nice to have seen crew members brought more to life ( like Destination Tokyo). Yet, the movie gives more focus on a black sailor (played estimably by Ben Carter) than you will see in other war pictures of the period. There are great exterior shots of New London Conn during the war too. Whenever I am on Rte 95 crossing the Mystic River, I gaze up and down that place and in my mind's eye I can envision USN subs--some doomed for Davey Jones Locker-- leaving for harm's way in 1943 in service to the Red Whit and Blue. That's the allure of Crash Dive. It brings it back to life. And when the credits roll by at the end, and you are urged to buy war bonds in this theater, somehow and only for a whisper of time, the echoes are awakened and the peril and glory are again alive.

Crash Dive is directed by Archie Mayo and written by Jo Swerling and W.R. Burnett. It stars Tyrone Power, Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, James Gleason, May Witty and Harry Morgan. A Technicolor production out of 20th Century Fox, music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Leon Shamroy.It's flag waving time, 1943 style as Power and Andrews vie for the love of Baxter whilst conducting a submarine offencive against the Nazis. The love triangle feels twee but Mayo manages to keep it in check and not let it bog this particular sub movie down. When the pic is out on the water it's grand entertainment, nicely filmed and featuring Oscar winning effects work. Momentum is gradually built until the finale comes and delivers an action packed bonanza. Hooray! 7/10

Crash Dive is a typical WWII propaganda film with a stirring musical score by Hugo Friedhofer that prompts any young man to want to enlist in the navy. The cast is uniformly good, especially Tyrone Power as he cleverly tries to woo a reluctant Anne Baxter. Sub skipper Dana Andrews always excelled in military roles. The plot borders on the ridiculous. A German naval base in the north Atlantic- where? An American submarine conducting offensive operations in the Atlantic would likely have been attacked on sight by Allied forces who would naturally assume all subs in the Atlantic were German (such was the fate of one U.S. sub which left New London for the Panama Canal and was never heard from again). Good action scenes for a film of this genre with many of the clichés that would be repeated in other WWII submarine films.